Surviving as a 21st Century Man

Young men today face at least 4 difficult challenges. None of which they are adequately prepared for.

The middle-class life script no longer works. And housing is priced based on double-income households. Plus inflation. Plus student debt payments. Good luck figuring out how to make enough money!

He doesn’t know how emasculated he is. You don’t know what you don’t know. And it’s a painful process to wake up. And it’s difficult to figure out what to do. A man has to piece it together from random strangers on the internet.

Feminism has infected all women. Even if a man knows what to do, he can expect his wife to resist his attempts to regain his masculinity.

Ingrained habits. It’s difficult enough for a boy to become a man under the guidance of a strong father. It’s at 3x more difficult for a weak man to overcome his ingrained habits on his own, without the luxury of childhood, and with practically every force in society against him.

If the “obstacle is the way”, I predict that the millennial generation will end up with a small number of extraordinary men, contrasted with a large number of men who simply give up on life (either literally or through apathy.)

Perhaps this has always been the case though. I don’t know. The world of men has always been unequal.

In the meantime, if you want series of steps to build yourself up as a man, this is what I’m using for myself:

Level 0: Philosophy – Understand and accept the nature of women. If you want to take this in quick-hitting style, I recommend starting here.

Level 1: Virtues – The four virtues of men are courage, strength, mastery, and honor. Or, to put it negatively, don’t think it’s okay to be a weak, incompetent coward. Here’s a quick test I devised to check myself on these virtues.

Level 2: Presentation – The virtues are what makes you a man on the inside. But everyone else judges you based on what they see on the outside. Hence, you must learn to present yourself properly to be taken seriously as a man. Pat Stedman’s “3 Pillars of Attraction” is the most useful framework I’ve found for this. When you’re ready to improve your bedroom “presentation” there’s Don of Desire.

Level 3: Judgment – Once you have perceived power, your wife (and others) will value your opinions. She will believe what you approve of and become whoever you expect her to be. It’s basic psychology. People (and especially women) conform themselves to perceived power. So think carefully about your values and opinions.

Level 4: Art – This where you think about how you will present your values and judgments. Use whatever medium is appropriate for you. Use contrasts. Show that you care and have her (or whoever’s) best interest in mind.

Level 5: Ask – After you’ve built yourself up as a man, you have the power to make requests that will be readily complied with. Ask for small commitments before larger ones. Physical action changes people’s identity.

This isn’t a strictly linear process. I’ve gone through several iterations of this throughout my marriage. But if you’re having difficulty on one level, check the lower levels.

Yes, it’s a long and difficult process. But it’s necessary. And it’s all up to you. No one is going to push you through this process.

I recently came across a fascinating piece of propaganda called “Men as Providers.”

It was an article published on the Council of Biblical Manhood & Womanhood (CBMW)’s blog several years back. Their stated mission is to “set forth the teachings of the Bible about the complementary differences between men and women.”

So far so good.

But as I delved into the article I realized that the advice given, as noble as it sounded, was precisely the line of thinking that almost shipwrecked my marriage a few years back.

Since this rhetoric is so pervasive in conservative church culture, I thought it’d be worth a quick analysis here.

The article opens with the claim “Christian men are called to provide for their families.”

Hard to disagree with that.

Then 1 Timothy 5:8 is used as authoritative backing of that claim:

“But if any man does not provide for his own, and especially for those of his household, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”

There are two red flags here.

One is that shameful rhetoric is entirely unnecessary. You should always be suspicious of an argument that opens with shame.

Shame is a fear trigger. Being shamed means you are rejected by the group. And when your mind is in a state of fear, it cannot think rationally. And the elimination of rational thought is the necessary condition for making people receptive to false ideas.

Shaming can be used for good, of course. That’s what Paul does. But that brings us to the second red flag:

The author is using Paul’s words in an entirely different context!

If you look up Paul’s argument in context, it goes something like this:

Do not scold your elders.

Honor (true) widows:

A widow’s children or grandchildren should learn to reciprocate love by providing for their own mother/grandmother (i.e. the church should not intervene)

A true widow is a woman who has no family to provide for her

A woman who squanders her resources is as good as dead

A man who refuses to provide for his own [widowed relatives], and especially his family [mother, grandmother] is worse than an unbeliever.

Qualifications for a true widow:

Not under 60 years old

Remained married to her husband

Known for good works

So we see that the point of Paul’s rhetoric was to shame men who refused to provide for their poor old mothers.

But this context is not even hinted at in the article. Instead, the rhetoric is re-purposed for something entirely different:

One of the most God-glorifying pictures of the gospel is when a man puts his childhood dreams to the side, steps up to the plate, gets a job, and valiantly cares for his family.

Now we see the true intention of this article: to motivate men to give up on their dreams and settle for a job that is less desirable to them.

The author says that “this is a man dying to self and living for another.”

Finally, the author concludes with this:

Our hearts break when we see a man who selfishly refuses a job because it does not align with his dreams while his wife and kids suffer. We are not alone in condemning this man. Scripture condemns him too. He is worse than an unbeliever.

By “suffering”, I’m assuming the author means having a smaller kitchen than her friends, having to shop at a thrift store, and not being able to travel. 21st century life is difficult.

Kill the Dream, Kill the Marriage

The irony of this advice is this is the exact line of reasoning that got my marriage in trouble in the first place.

I married my wife while in college. During my junior year I realized I was wasting my time and wanted to drop out and go into business.

But my wife didn’t want me to because she valued college degrees and the economic security it represented. So I stuck with it and got my degree.

When I graduated college, I had no marketable skills. And these supposed jobs that hire anyone with a college degree didn’t exist.

But I realized one thing about myself: I was an entrepreneur at heart. I knew that, with the right skills and perseverance, I could make money on my own.

But it took longer than expected. I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

So my wife begged me to get a regular job with a steady paycheck. So I found a writing job that paid $12/hour.

I absolutely hated that job. The company was dishonest and constantly took on clients that we couldn’t help. I was instructed to lie to get writing opportunities and had to write about topics I had no real-world qualifications to write about.

I wanted to quit the job. But my wife wanted the steady paycheck.

I told myself I was doing the right thing by gritting my teeth and “providing for my family.”

I felt like a trapped and emasculated man. I began to despise both myself and my wife.

I began to vent my frustrations on her. Our sex life dried up. I started making stupid financial decisions out of desperation to escape my hated situation.

It wasn’t until I quit that job and reclaimed pursuing my mission that our marriage got back on track.

Someone has to point this out. The red pill community can follow one of two storylines:

Story #1: The Happy Ending

Society took your balls.

Marriage failed to bring you happiness.

You discover the red pill.

You get your balls back.

You have a sexually satisfying marriage.

Story #2: The Sad Story

Society took your balls.

Marriage failed to bring you happiness.

You discover the red pill.

You find an online support community to help lick your wounds.

You feed off the undercurrent of rage and bitter criticism until you die.

The Red Pill community has largely become a sad story. Shared heartache creates community.

But the future is malleable. A community can choose to allow heartache to evolve into a bitch session, where the conversation is dominated by the most unhappy and least productive. This is the default path of every community.

It just seems so many boards are dedicated to how men have to change to get their wives back.

But I think many of the women we have chosen are simply not marriage material. I mean women initiate 70 percent of divorces. And for many of these women no matter how you change, they really just want something different.

Thoughts?

In the past, older men would teach younger men how to deal with women. But nowadays, few older men have the kind of marriage a younger man would want.

If an older man has a wife that is fat and/or sassy, I’m not going to take marriage advice from him. Unless he’s warning me what not to do.

The older generation of men is doing the younger a great disservice. Rather than admit what doesn’t work, they double down to protect their ego investment… duping yet another generation of men into sexless misery.

Until I personally meet an older man whom I suspect is having more sex than me, I think I’ll continue to rely on pick up artists and personal experimentation.